Elinor Ostrom

Yes, we're showing that. But we're also showing a very important role for face-to-face or even written communication. So, the prediction was that nobody would self-monitor because that's a second level social dilemma, if you go to Game Theory. But, what we've found is that people will, but it can be … people can escalate into, 'I'll punish you, you punish him, mamamamamma,' and it gets worse and worse. So, with communication, where there's an agreement on what is going to be the … what we are going to do. The 'we' then being well-defined, then people can follow rules, be cooperative and, occasionally, sanction one another to help that continue.

Recorded · Adam Smith, Telephone interview recorded immediately after the prize announcement, Nobel Prize Outreach, 12 October 2009 · source

Yes, but not with a formula. So there are many, many efforts now to decentralize and they create a rigid formula and give people rules from on top and say, 'Now it's yours.' And that isn't worked very well either. … And, you think about the variety. If you look at a countryside, think of the variety out there in terms of the ecological variety. Well, if people are going to manage ecological variety, no single set of rules will work in a semi-arid versus a tropical-wet region. They have to be different.

Recorded · Adam Smith, Telephone interview recorded immediately after the prize announcement, Nobel Prize Outreach, 12 October 2009 · source

Yes. Having lived through an era, where I was thinking of going to graduate school and was strongly discouraged because I would never be able to do anything but teach in a city college … Ah ha ha, life has changed!

Recorded · Adam Smith, Telephone interview recorded immediately after the prize announcement, Nobel Prize Outreach, 12 October 2009 · source